


Parents without Partners

by blurhawaii



Category: The Departed (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurhawaii/pseuds/blurhawaii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean pegs him during the first meeting.</p><p>He never actually makes it into the room, not while people are milling about, swapping stories and downing hot coffee, but he hangs by the door looking like a stray begging for scraps. He’s been nursing a single Styrofoam cup the entire time and seems to be wary about crossing the threshold for another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parents without Partners

**Author's Note:**

> This comes entirely from a throw-away line in The Departed. Two women are discussing a parents without partners meeting in the bar and I went from there.

-

Sean pegs him during the first meeting.

He never actually makes it into the room, not while people are milling about, swapping stories and downing hot coffee, but he hangs by the door looking like a stray begging for scraps. He’s been nursing a single Styrofoam cup the entire time and seems to be wary about crossing the threshold for another.

It doesn’t take long for Sean to grow sick of the single moms giving him the stink eye and the try-hard dads that look a touch envious of him, but it’s the kid fucking tiptoeing around that finally gets him to move away from the refreshments table.

He fills two cups, close to spilling, and heads for the door.

As soon as the kid spots him coming over, he freezes. So used to being ignored, moving in and out of this place like a ghost, Sean’s attention has him panicking and his eyes dart around for a place to throw his cup out, all the while shuffling from foot to foot in a way that has alarm bells ringing in Sean’s head.

He squints around watery blue eyes when Sean simply holds out one of the cups. There’s a nasty looking cut above his right eye, mottled green and yellow, and it’s another two checks off Sean’s mental list.

“Here,” Sean says, dropping the soft tone that the meeting coordinator had tried to drum into him. “Now you can stop pining, Jesus Christ.”

“Thanks,” is all he says, not even with feeling, but his hands wrap around the warmth all the same.

They sip at their drinks in silence until finally the kid lifts his hand towards the corkboard on the wall next to them. It’s littered in scraps of paper, both colourful and not: dog-sitters, baby-walkers, alcoholics who are never anonymous, the whole fucking lot.

“So you’re one of them, huh?”

The kid’s pointing to one of the posters, the kind that isn’t colourful or happy in any way, just depressing. A stick figure is holding hands with a smaller, crying figure, stage left, and there’s a gaping blank space, stage right. Above it, in prison block letters, it reads: Parents without Partners. 

Sean snorts and then nods. “A parent? Yeah, I am.”

“Not to be rude but you don’t exactly look the type to come to one of these things.”

Sean catches the kid’s eye, bruised and swollen, but no less sharp it seems. If Sean had him pegged straight away, the kid couldn’t have been far off that himself. He can read punk in the way the kid fidgets; the kid can read cop in the hunch of his shoulders.

“I have to be here,” Sean sighs, “it’s part of the custody agreement.”

He sounds like the regular pieces of shit who show up for their one court mandated session and that’s it; the kind who gets the signature they need and then fucks off to get shit-faced every Thursday night instead, but it’s too late to take the words back.

The kid gives him a once over from the rim of his coffee cup and Sean must have really underestimated him because he clearly sees something in Sean’s clenched fists and shakes his head.

“You don’t have to be here,” he says, soft and mild, like he’s mid-twenties and as wise as old shit.

It causes vitriol to rise in Sean, deep in his stomach. He thinks of his little girl; can’t cut a straight line with a pair of scissors if she tried but can recite the twelve times table as easy as breathing. He has to be here, he thinks, for both of them. No matter what a piece of paper says.

“What the fuck do you know,” Sean grits out, and he throws his empty cup in the trash but doesn’t move away, just pushes his hands deep into his pockets. “I’m not taking life advice from a guy who can’t stop looking over his shoulder every two seconds. Who the fuck are you running from, anyway?”

The kid blinks, not offended just surprised. “What? No, it’s not like that.”

Sean plays along, nodding. “You just come here for the coffee then.”

“That and the company, yeah.”

The kid chuckles, dull and breathy like he struggled through asthma as a boy and never quite grew out of it. It’s somewhat endearing.

Besides, Sean knows how it really is. An empty home can be pretty suffocating, especially at night. Factor in whatever shit the kid’s gotten himself involved in; it’s not surprising that he doesn’t want to be alone. He’s not sure he’d have picked the local community centre as a place to be around warm voices and shuffling feet but that’s the kid’s choice. Sean would probably go see a movie or some shit, if it was him, but whatever works, he guesses. Company is company.

One of the older ladies, maybe the one who set out all the cakes and fresh coffee in the first place, she sticks her head out of the door during their pause in conversation. She gives the kid a look that says if she passed him on the street she’d clutch her purse closer, afraid that he’d try to steal her twenty bucks and stale mints. It’s marginally more respectful when her eyes shift to Sean and that’s only because she probably thinks he’s about to arrest the poor kid.

“Mr. Dignam? We’re getting ready to wrap things up now. You might want to come back inside.”

She ducks back in with a parting glare and the kid huffs a quiet breath and glances down at his shoes. If Sean had any warm feelings to spare, he’d give them to the kid, right here, right now, just so he wouldn’t look so downtrodden.

“I gotta go,” Sean says instead, thumbing towards the door.

“You’re coming back next week though, right?” The kid asks, and it’s touching really, like Sean already has another set of eyes looking out for his girl, to keep him on his toes. The question definitely has nothing to do with the slightly probing way the kid’s gaze runs over him once again, this time slower, more appreciative. And Sean’s only thirty-three but he already feels too old for this shit, too predatory, that when he smiles back, it’s all teeth and cop menace.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Billy.”

Billy’s probably done illegal shit. Drugs and worse, there’s no telling. Sean feels a tug of responsibility that has nothing to do with Billy’s youthful face and red mouth. And Sean waits until he has Billy’s full attention, even moving a few steps closer to see that red mouth curve into a knowing smile, before speaking. “Don’t do any more stupid shit, alright Billy.”

Billy watches him sound out his name and his smile only grows wider. “I don’t make a habit of it,” he says, but he’s fucking punk who grins right through it.

“Whatever,” Sean cuts in, before things can go too far. In a blink; in one wrong word. “Just be here next week.”

“Sure,” Billy says, and he holds up the Styrofoam cup and shakes it from side to side, “this meeting has all the best shit anyway.”

-

Sean’s on mandatory leave when he catches the aftermath of a shooting downtown on the news.

Punching a fellow officer is pretty bad but it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. Plus, it means he’s home in the middle of the day to help his daughter with her homework. Though it’s numbers and she has him pretty beat on that form, he gets to watch her brain fly which is pretty fucking good too.

He has the sound muted, as a stream of words can sometimes obscure the flow of numbers in and out, so when Billy’s face suddenly stares back at him, eyes dull and jaw clenched, the classic academy photo, he’s not sure what to think.

William Costigan, Jr.

The junior part’s right, Sean thinks, remembering the childish shit-eating grin. It’s the words state trooper under his name that has Sean holding his breath.

When it cuts to a number of body bags being wheeled out of a building, Sean feels sick. He pulls his daughter onto his lap. She grumbles the entire time, never taking her eyes off her worksheet, but settles down once he stops moving.

They show Billy’s face several time over the course of the story, Sean flinches each time.


End file.
